PrimeVerse: Dose of Chaos: A GameLit / LitRPG Adventure

by R K Billiau

  “This is kind of anticlimactic,” Madison said. “I was all tensed up for a slime fight.”

  There wasn’t much to interact with. The crystal ball was resting in the bowl of the pedestal and touching it had no effect. I tried to move it, but either it was too heavy, or it was attached to the pedestal. I even tried gazing into the crystal ball, focusing all my energy, anticipating seeing my future or being told my fortune. I got nothing.

  I walked around the pedestal investigating it and wondering if I should do an Assessment when I thought of something. The yellow light was lighting up the pedestal a shade of lighter yellow, but the pedestal looked strikingly similar to the one in the room we had gotten the key from. All the other pedestals had been white.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “What?” Madison asked.

  “I just realized something. Our light,” I pointed towards the baculus, “is yellow.”

  “Yeah? So?” Carl asked.

  Kai got it right away, a frown creasing his face. “The pedestal isn’t yellow; it only looks that way because of the light.”

  “Exactly. The globs probably aren’t orange either,” I said.

  Madison facepalmed. “Of course! I don’t know how I missed that either! I even teach... er... taught that to kids. If the globs are orange under your yellow light, that means they must actually be red. So the first one must have either been yellow or clear.” She was bouncing on her toes as she spoke, obviously excited.

  “I bet that’s why my stick lit it up then,” I said, pointing to it. “Same colors. Maybe…”

  “Maybe that’s why it attacked and these didn’t!” Madison yelled.

  “This is an interesting theory, that will be good to know,” Kai said. “It’s important to understand your opponent’s weaknesses. If this is true, using the wrong color light could have had a disastrous effect if these were attacking. Lighting it up was the only thing that allowed me to break through the membrane.”

  “Maybe I should switch to red just in case?” I asked.

  “Not if that will make them attack,” Madison said.

  “Let’s just move on and see what we can find,” Carl said. “There’s got to be something more up ahead.”

  We went down the only other tunnel out of the room, which went another few dozen yards before ending at a large room. This room had two more passageways on either side of the one we had just come out of, and a steep ramp of stone tiles, that was the width of the room, going up to something we couldn’t see.

  “Think all the tunnels in the cave lead here?” I said, examining the other tunnels.

  “It certainly looks that way,” Kai said. “Either way, let’s head up there and see what we can find.” He pointed towards the ramp.

  We climbed it slowly, keeping an eye out for traps. It felt ominous and perfect trap territory, but even using our skills, we couldn’t find anything.

  When we got to the top of the ramp, it appeared to be somewhat of a platform. There was a wall in front of us, but on either side it went straight down. Or at least I assumed it was straight down, because when I looked over the edge I couldn’t see a dang thing. Just blackness.

  In the middle were three large pedestals with the same bowl-shaped indentations on them, but no crystal balls. There was nothing else up here.

  “Well now what,” Carl asked.

  “Oh, I think I know what,” Madison said. “I’m betting each of those paths leading into the room down there has a crystal ball like the one we just found. And I bet we have to get each one onto these pedestals.” She waved her arm at the pedestals.

  “I think you may be onto something,” Kai said.

  “But how to get the orbs? You saw me try lifting the one we found. It doesn’t budge,” I said.

  “I guess we better figure it out,” she said. “If this is how to solve the dungeon, there will be a way.”

  We milled about for a minute or two before deciding to go back down the ramp into the room with orange... er... red, globs. I circled the pedestal, avoiding the squelching globs, and eyeing the orb.

  “Well,” I said, “ideas?”

  “Let’s all try to lift it?” Carl said as he stood on one side of it, pushing. The rest of us gathered around and started pushing this way and that, trying to get it off the pedestal to no avail.

  “Okay, clearly this isn’t how to do it,” Madison said. “Everything seems to be centered around these colors. I bet you have to light up the orb with a different color. If these globs here are actually red, maybe we should try that?”

  “Worth a shot!” I said and I popped the yellow disc out and back into my inventory, trading it for the red one. I slipped the red disc in and as soon as I activated the stick, red light eManated from the tip. The pedestal began sinking into the ground, and the crystal orb lit up with a bright red light enveloping the room. As it became flush with the ground, the orb was dislodged. The red light covered the room, and as it bathed the globs in its hue, they turned at once and attacked.

  Chapter 22

  “Oh SHIT!” Carl shouted as the closest glob slammed a pseudopod into the hunter, knocking him against the wall. An orange flickering light came from his body as flames appeared where he had been struck.

  “It burns! It BURNS!” he screamed, and I got a firsthand look at a Panic debuff from the outside while he ran screaming and flailing.

  “Madison, get a formation up, you in front, and get your shield out!” Kai barked. “Hudson get behind her and strike at one when it attacks. Once we are in formation, Madison give Carl a Boost.”

  As if on cue, the glowing, pulsing X’s of a formation appeared in a diamond pattern and Madison jumped into the point position, the stone shield already out and in front of her. I tried not to be too annoyed that she made holding that thing look easy.

  I stepped into place behind her and Kai joined me on the other side. “Carl!” Kai shouted, “use the Boost to increase your Self attribute, it should help with the debuffs!”

  I had no idea if Carl registered what Kai was saying because he kept running and flailing.

  “What’s our plan here guys?” Madison asked. “We are really out in the open.”

  She wasn’t wrong. It was Kai and me in the back line, our backs exposed to the ramp exit, with a glob on either side of the red orb making their way toward us with their slow, scrunchy movements. Thankfully, the third was focused on Carl and was flinging its pseudopods out at him in a vain attempt to hit the panicking man.

  “We can stay and fight, or we can make a tactical retreat up the ramp,” Kai said. “If we retreat, Carl will most likely die.”

  “As sad as that doesn’t make me, we need to avoid that if we can. I don’t know how many more levels there are to this dungeon and I don’t want to fail it,” I said.

  “Fight it is!” Kai said, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he sounded quite happy about it. “Madison, Boost please?”

  “My spear won’t do any good against these things,” she said as she cast Boost on us. I took Kai’s advice and applied it to my Self attribute, hoping it would help prevent debuffs. I also hoped I could remember all the things I wanted to figure out when we got to a safe spot, like if Self actually helped against debuffs? I shook my head to snap myself out of the rumination and focused on the big red glob coming right for us from the side.

  “Just practice using your shield,” Kai said to Madison. “If you can buy us time with blocking attacks, we can focus on dealing damage.” There was no more time to talk as the closest glob had squelched its way over and lashed out a pseudopod, like a chameleon flicking its tongue at a fly.

  I dodged the flailing appendage, and while I couldn’t say for certain, I’m pretty sure I looked awesome. I hoped the Adjudicator was watching. I then whacked my rod down onto it, expecting it to light up like the previous one had. I was disappointed- and a little nervous- to see that it didn’t. My attack caused it to flinch back as if it had stubbed a toe, but that was it.


  “Uh oh,” I said. “It’s not lighting up like before.”

  “Damnit!” Kai swore from my other side as his glob had finally gotten within range. He easily avoided the attacks and slammed his fist quickly into the side of the glob, causing ripples to explode out of it.

  Distracted watching Kai, I failed to avoid the next attack from my glob, but Madison moved her shield up just in time to prevent it from landing. “Pay attention, Huddy!” she shouted.

  “Sorry! Sorry!” I said and focused on my enemy. I lunged in with a jab, hoping to pierce the membrane, but the thing grabbed my arm with a quickly formed pseudopod. It squeezed and a sliver of life disappeared from my health bar.

  “That all you’ve got?” I yelled and yanked my arm back. It didn’t work. It tightened its grip around me and felt a sudden heat building. I pulled harder, but the harder I pulled the more it seemed to tighten, like a Chinese finger trap. I twisted and yanked and shoved to no avail, as its appendage ignited and my arm caught on fire.

  I didn’t think I needed the help of the Panic debuff to panic, but I got it anyway. That and the Burn debuff. When it popped up on my HUD, my health bar had little flames in it. Cute.

  I had burned myself before; on a hot pan still on the stove, on a much too hot cup of coffee, once on my fingers as a kid trying to put a candle out by pinching it. But this was different. The pain enveloping my arm was searing- I saw nothing but black and heard nothing but ringing. The pain was all consuming; my Pain debuff went straight to the red, grimaced face as if I needed a reminder about how much pain I was in. I frantically wiped at my arm, trying to fan out the flames and in doing so, finally yanked my burning arm free.

  I slammed my arm over and over into the side of the glob, desperately trying to remember the movements Kai had shown me. It didn’t seem to do any damage, though it did help put out the flames. My Toughness skill was not nearly high enough to combat the pain of burning flesh. Or high enough to keep me from feeling nauseous over the smell of my own melted skin. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever eat BBQ again.

  Madison blocked another attack, then something in front of her slammed against her shield. I took a peek over her shoulder to find the glob from the hall had joined in the party and had thrown a flaming ball of goo at us, thankfully stopped by Madison’s shield. Kai screamed as he took a Burning debuff, but the pain seemed to just make him attack harder. I wondered if that was a skill I could learn, or if it was just his homemade badass-ness.

  I continued to swing away, striking and jabbing when I could, but I could tell my attacks weren’t having much, if any, effect.

  “We…” slam! “have to…” kick! “do something…” jab! “different…” Kai said through attacks. “I can… barely… hurt these things.”

  “The orb!” Madison said. “We have to get away from the orb! Its light is so bright it’s keeping Hudson from lighting them up!”

  Carl suddenly stopped running and flailing, but his eyes were wild. “Help!” he shouted.

  I pointed to the orb on the ground. “Get the orb, take it up the ramp! We’ll cover you!” I shouted at him.

  My glob swung at me again, and this time I raised my baculus up with both hands on the outer edges to block the attack. I smiled, despite the situation, at seeing the block work. That was pretty cool, if I may say so myself.

  Carl shook his head as if he was unsure what to do, but the glob closest to him lashing out again spurred him into action. He ran and dove for the orb, sliding into it. Instead of being stuck firmly to the now sunken pedestal, it rolled off easily and Carl was able to scoop it up.

  I saw Kai’s health bar get bedazzled with the little flames as he cursed again. All in all, we weren’t that hurt, but we had done negligible damage to our foes as well. If it came to a battle of attrition, we would most likely lose. Madison blocked another ball of flaming goo, and I noticed the glob that had thrown it seemed a little smaller than before.

  Carl was running with the orb now, cradling it like a watermelon and moving at a decent speed, and we broke ranks to cover him. Kai got struck again, and Madison charged forward to slam the glob that was chasing Carl with her shield. The glob took the hit, ripples splashing across it, and it almost seemed dazed, as it just stopped moving.

  I kept attacking and dodging my glob, mostly to keep its attention. I must have been successful because it reared back and suddenly launched five pseudopods at once in what seemed like a special attack. I tried to dodge, but dodged right into one of the other appendages, which cracked me on the head and sent me into another one that slammed into my gut. A Winded debuff appeared and I was unable to move for a second as I had to wait for it to clear. That second was all the glob needed, and it launched attack after attack in quick succession.

  My health was plummeting and the Burn debuff kept getting reset. It never got any worse, but the duration kept extending. Finally, Carl made it past us into the next room and with the orb gone, the room’s light lessened. I was mid slash and when my rod hit, it penetrated deeply, and the glob lit up.

  “Yes!” I fist pumped the air with my opposite hand before twisting and shoving my baculus in deeper.

  Madison was doing a bang-up job blocking attacks as the glob in front of her shook off its daze and began striking, while the outer glob continued hurling burning pieces of itself at us.

  “Kai, I can light them up again!” I shouted. No response. “Kai! They’re lighting up again!” When he still didn’t respond, I turned my head to see something I had never thought I’d see and hoped I would never see again. Kai was running around screaming, arms flailing above his head, his body covered in patches of flames.

  “Damnit! Fall back Madison, let’s get out of this room!” I shouted and grabbed her arm to pull her along.

  We moved out of the room, the slow-moving globs looking none the worse for wear, while we were a burned, motley crew.

  Suddenly Madison’s jaw dropped, and she pointed her finger back into the room. I followed it to see the spot where the podium had sunken in. A bubble was forming on that square, a pink bubble that, as it got larger, was slowly starting to fill in.

  “Is that...?” I asked to the empty air as Madison and Carl had already started up the ramp. I turned and ran also, tackling Kai and sending us both rolling into the hallway. I picked myself up and helped Kai, who seemed to have shaken off the panic. We stood side by side in the passageway, as the globs made their way down it towards us.

  “Run?” I asked.

  Kai cocked an eyebrow at me and pointed down the path. “We have plenty of health, and they can only come one at a time, single file here, let’s try to stick it out.”

  I thought he had a strange definition of ‘plenty of health’ seeing as we were both under half, but he did have a point. When a glob got up to us, I lunged at it before it could swing its pseudopod and struck it hard with my baculus. This time in the relative darkness of the tunnel it lit up from the inside like a lightbulb- just like the first yellow one had.

  “Perfect!” I shouted and struck again and again.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Agility attribute!

  Kai was hanging back and not attacking. I saw out of the corner of my eye as he blocked an attack that had been meant for me, but he still wasn’t going on the offensive.

  “Why aren’t you fighting?” I asked, mid whack.

  “You have to practice, try to feel the weight of the stick and balance before you swing. Also, less whacking and more jabbing.” He did a little jab motion in the air. “A weapon like this can be quite effective when you jab someone… or something,” he said.

  I appreciated the lesson, but with three more of these things moving into the tunnel, this was a bad time for instruction. With a Spirited jab, I pushed through the membrane of the closest glob, lighting it up from the inside. The core in the center of the glob caught my eye and in a moment of inspiration, I held my baculus, feeling the weight of it, letting it teeter-totter back and forth slightly on my pal
m. I clutched it and jabbed again, harder, grunting with effort and feeling the burning envelope even more of my body while I shoved myself against- and into- this creature.

  My arm buried deep within it, I screamed as the Pain debuff climbed higher and higher as I jabbed like Kai had shown me at the core of the creature. My rod hit, scoring critical, and the core exploded, causing the glob to swell and explode as well. Kai and I were splattered with the burning goo as its inside became its outsides.

  Congratulations! You have learned the Stick Fighting skill!

  Audeo – Stick Fighting has been increased to level 10.

  Congratulations! You have achieved a milestone in your Stick Fighting skill!

  Called Shot – when aiming for a specific spot on a target, +10% critical chance.

  I would have loved to celebrate, but my health was dropping at a steady rate and my pain level was so high I was beginning to have tunnel vision. Not death tunnel, just regular tunnel. I checked out the health bars of the rest of the party and saw I was the only one with a Burn debuff left.

  Kai and I both looked at the multiple globs that were approaching, then at each other.

  “Now we should run,” he said.

  “Fine with me,” I said and we turned tail and ran out of the tunnel into the room with the ramp. Once again I was thankful that the globs were slow and we were able to put a good bit of distance between us. We made it to the ramp and paused, the globs splorching their way to us in their gastropod-esque movements.

  “You know, we don’t actually know how getting up there will help at all,” I said.

  “True, but we will never know unless we try. Come on, keep up!” Kai moved up the ramp, his leather outfit hanging strangely on his body, darkened and holey from the flames. I glanced down at my own, which wasn’t any prettier. I hoped Graham wasn’t expecting these outfits back.

  I took a deep breath and ran after Kai. Carl and Madison had already made it up, Carl still holding the red orb, and Madison waiting at the top smiling down at us, egging us on. Even in a dark dungeon, her eyes sparkled while she grinned.